Loren R. "Blackie" Clark

Clark, Loren R. 'Blackie' 88 Aug. 17, 1924 Nov. 26, 2012 Loren Clark, who pioneered junior fashion retailing in Oregon, died Nov. 26 in a Tigard care facility of natural causes. He was 88. Teenage girls in the baby boom generation, later their daughters and even their granddaughters shopped at stores in the CLARK JR. chain from Portland to Eugene. They were eager for styles reflecting the pop culture revolution taking place in the '60s, '70s and '80s in places like London, Rome and California. The junior in CLARK JR. referred to the size and style of the fashions. These were a fresh attraction in themselves, but Clark also introduced interior architecture, design and music in his stores to match the energy and excitement of changes under way in popular culture. Clark was his own fashion buyer, bringing his young customers styles and colors later emulated by larger department stores. A number of retail managers and executives received their early career training at CLARK JR., where members of the sales staff were known as CLARK JR. Groovy Chicks. Loren Richard Clark was born in Portland to Clarence Melville Clark, a dry goods retailer, and Jessie Mae West, niece of Gov. Oswald West, on Aug. 17, 1924. He and his sister, Doris, grew up in the Mt. Tabor neighborhood. He had a paper route and he enjoyed family golf, camping and travels in the Clark's Willys-Knight touring car to Mount Hood, Central Oregon, the Oregon Coast and other points around the state. That set a lifelong love of golf as well as exploring Oregon's high desert back country. He attended Glencoe School and Franklin High School, where he ran track, played the trumpet and was remembered as a sharp dresser and good dancer. He attended the University of Oregon for one year before joining the Navy. He saw duty in the Pacific Theater during World War II as a quartermaster on a fleet flagship. Following his discharge from the Navy in 1946, he and Charlotte Ruth Kaufman, a Franklin classmate, were married in Portland. Following Clark's graduation from the University of Oregon, the couple moved to New York City where Clark earned a graduate degree in retail science from New York University. Returning to Portland, Clark joined his father's Portland dry goods business and expanded it with a store in Beaverton in 1952. In 1959 he founded CLARK JR. with his first outlet in the newly opened Lloyd Center. Clark and his wife, Charlotte, built the CLARK JR. chain to nine stores in downtowns and shopping centers up and down the Willamette Valley. During these years the Clarks raised three children in a busy home in the Broadmoor neighborhood of Raleigh Hills. They sold the store chain and retired in 1982. Clark was a founding member of the Beaverton Kiwanis and was instrumental in creating the Edwards Work-Activity Center in Aloha, which serves adults with developmental challenges. He was a 50-year member of the Multnomah Athletic Club and a member of Portland Golf Club. He is survived by his wife, Charlotte; sister, Doris Nicholls of Bellevue, Wash.; children, Sarah Brumbaugh of Hood River, Tom Clark of Tigard and Anne Clark of Waialua, Hawaii; grandchildren, Kate Brumbaugh of Corvallis, Jessie Porter of St. Helen's and Lily and Jay Clark of Tigard; and great-grandchildren, William and Kacie Porter of St. Helens. A memorial service will be held on Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012, at 1 p.m., St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Portland. Friends, family and former CLARK JR. Groovy Chicks are invited to attend.